DHS to Give Local Police ICE Facial Recognition App

The Department of Homeland Security plans to equip local police departments across the country with a facial recognition mobile application currently used by federal immigration agents, according to NPR. The tool, called the ICE Task Force Module (TFM), allows officers to scan faces and check them against more than 250 million government records to determine immigration status.

The app, which launched on September 24, 2025, could be deployed to more than 1,000 local law enforcement agencies participating in ICE’s 287(g) Task Force Model program across 32 states. The expansion would dramatically scale up biometric surveillance capabilities far beyond the federal level.

How the App Works

Developed by Customs and Border Protection, the TFM app compares facial scans against a vast database of government records, including State Department visa records and the Traveler Verification Service used by the TSA at airports. After scanning a person’s face, the app returns text instructions: either “not detain or arrest” or a reference code to obtain more information from ICE.

All photos captured by the app — including those of U.S. citizens and individuals who do not match any records — are stored in DHS’s Automated Targeting System for 15 years, according to the DHS Privacy Threshold Analysis document obtained by 404 Media. Each photo is also tagged with geolocation metadata so ICE can identify where encounters occurred.

The app does not provide individuals with a Privacy Act statement, privacy notice, or any opportunity to decline or consent before their face is scanned, the document states.

Civil Liberties Concerns

Privacy advocates and civil liberties groups have raised alarm about the program’s scope and lack of safeguards. “This embarrassingly cursory document utterly fails to acknowledge the harms that will flow from putting a flawed face recognition app in the hands of many thousands of local police,” Nate Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404 Media.

Clare Garvie, deputy director of the Technology Law and Policy Program at NYU School of Law’s Policing Project, questioned the legal framework governing the app’s use. “It’s unclear to me whether a pre-existing stop based on some level of suspicion is required before law enforcement can use this app,” she told NPR. “Can they walk around taking photos of whoever as sort of a dragnet way to attempt to identify individuals who might be in the country unlawfully?”

Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, described the expansion as “a Bill of Rights disaster pretty much waiting to happen,” warning that scaling the technology magnifies its potential to infringe on individual rights.

Cooper Quintin, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the app “the new form of ‘papers, please’” and said it would make “face surveillance ubiquitous on American streets.”

Known Errors and Due Process Gaps

Facial recognition technology is known to have higher error rates for people of color, and the federal-level app on which TFM is based — Mobile Fortify — has already misidentified individuals, including U.S. citizens. In one documented case, a farmworker was scanned twice and both scans were inaccurate.

The DHS Privacy Threshold Analysis itself acknowledges the risk, stating: “It is conceivable that a photo taken by an ICE non-federal law enforcement officer using the TFM mobile application could be that of someone other than a removable individual, including U.S. citizens.”

DHS’s public AI inventory listed several key safeguards as still incomplete after Mobile Fortify went operational, including an AI impact assessment, independent review, ongoing monitoring, fail-safe procedures, and an appeal process.

Broader Surveillance Infrastructure

The TFM app is the latest addition to an expanding web of ICE surveillance tools. The agency has access to automatic license plate readers, cell phone location data, state motor vehicle records through the Nlets system, and data broker purchases. ICE also has agreements with HHS for Medicaid data sharing and has been found by a federal judge to have obtained IRS address data in violation of tax law.

In a statement to NPR, DHS said: “Like other law enforcement agencies, ICE employs various forms of technology to investigate criminal activity and support law enforcement efforts while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests.”

Legal Challenges and Congressional Scrutiny

Legal challenges are already underway. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit in Minnesota challenging First Amendment violations against observers of ICE activity, and a class action lawsuit in Maine alleges DHS illegally tracked observers. Senators Ed Markey, Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley and others have pressed DHS on Mobile Fortify, and legislation has been introduced to restrict or ban ICE and CBP use of facial recognition technology.

What to Watch For

The deployment of TFM to local police raises fundamental questions about the balance between immigration enforcement and constitutional rights. Key unanswered questions include how local police will be trained to use the app, what standards govern detention based on an app response, how match results will be audited, and whether individuals can challenge an erroneous match.

As the program rolls out, the distinction between routine policing and federal immigration enforcement may become increasingly blurred, with local officers effectively acting as the front end of a nationwide biometric immigration enforcement system.